what did you expect to hear?

Laurel, Yanny…

Yanny, Laurel…

With visions of sugar-plums or blue and black or white and gold dresses still dancing in our heads, we find ourselves debating yet another divisive phenomenon. 

A Reddit user recently posted a short audio clip, asking fellow users the simple question: “what do you hear?”

Hundreds of thousands voiced an opinion — even Ellen DeGeneres and JJ Watt. Fascinatingly, DeGeneres and Watt — two upstanding, seemingly goodhearted people — heard two totally, different things.

One heard “Laurel.” The other heard “Yanny” — two completely different words — words so different in meaning and sound that there is no possible way both people could be right.

And since each actually heard it, it takes minimal effort for each to conclude that they alone are right. 

In the days that followed, we have learned that technically, if you heard “Laurel,” you heard correctly; it was the vocabulary word of a Georgia high school student. But the explanation shouldn’t blind us to the wisdom embedded in the opportunity before us…

“You mean that good people — even intelligent people, logical people, people I love — might be convinced they heard the only right thing? … that they may conclude, even vehemently so — that all others are wrong? … and then maybe, they might start treating that other as lesser? … even justify insults or looking down on them?…

There were multiple explanations for this recent, aptly-termed, “auditory illusion.” Wired Magazine shared as follows: 

“… Thankfully, scientists have an explanation for why people hear different things when they listen to the recording. A number of academics chimed in to explain the phenomenon on Twitter. They said that the clip is an ‘ambiguous figure,’ or as one auditory neuroscientist explained it to The Verge1, the audio version of ‘Rubin’s Vase,’ an optical illusion where two people’s profiles can also be seen as a flower vase. In other words, it’s an optical illusion, except for your ears. There’s not really a correct answer either way. The reason that the recording is so contested is likely because it’s noisy, meaning there are lots of different frequencies captured. What you hear depends on which frequencies your brain emphasizes.

The higher frequency sounds in the recording make people hear ‘Yanny,’ whereas the lower frequencies cause others to swear they hear ‘Laurel.’ What you hear depends on what sounds your brain is paying attention to, your past experiences, and what you’re expecting to hear. What word you experience might also have to do with your age. Older adults often start losing their hearing within the higher-frequency range, meaning it’s possible that more young people hear ‘Yanny.’

There are also other, technical explanations. For example, what you hear might have to do with your speakers, your headphones, or the acoustics in the room. ‘The main reason (I suspect) people hear this differently is because different headphones and speakers filter the frequencies of the sound in different ways,’ tweeted Dana Boebinger, a PhD student at Harvard and MIT studying auditory perception, in a thread breaking down the illusion. There’s also what platform you heard it on first—the differences in the audio could have something do with how Twitter or Instagram compresses video files…”

Let’s get this straight…

There’s not really a correct answer either way…

The reason that the recording is so contested is likely because it’s noisy… (… what other sounds and voices are we listening to?)…

What you hear depends on what sounds your brain is paying attention to, your past experiences, and what you’re expecting to hear…

So what we are paying attention to affects what we actually hear.

Sounds like maybe, just maybe, we could apply this wisdom even further…

Respectfully…

AR